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Hawksmoor

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  1. Hawksmoor
    I am just about recovering from my second bout with the Covid virus so I thought I would do something vaguely astronomical which wasn't cloud dependant.  We have had a lot of clouds in Lowestoft recently. I discovered a nearly completed low resolution transmission spectrometer with fixed slit in the shed which I was building some time ago for obtaining the spectrum of extended objects. Sounds very technical but as per my norm, very Valerie Singleton and Chad Valley.
    Anyway somewhere in the past I read that it was possible to obtain a spectrum of sunlight by connecting a fibre optic cable to a spectrometer/camera set up and retiring immediately. No collimating and focussing lenses involved! Now I may have imagined this, probably the drugs! 
    So being bored I finished off the spectrometer, fixed an audio fibre optic cable to the front end and my modded Canon 200d to the other end. When I pointed the end of the fibre optic cable at the sun I was able to snap away and collect some data which I promptly stacked. 
    I then set about reducing the data to create a spectrum profile.  This is probably where I went wrong. First, how was I going to calibrate the profile which was all very lowercase squiggles? Well as the image encompassed the zero, first and second orders,  I could approximately identify one point 0 on the x axis. 
    I then remembered that the temperature of the Sun roughly obeys Wien's law and as the internet could provide the visible wavelength at which the Sun delivers max flux I could obtain a second calibration point on the x axis for the highest y axis point on the flux curve. A linear calibration could then be performed. 
    As I knew our Sun is a G2V star, I used this profile to correct my image profile for camera response. 
    All very well but am I fooling myself? 
    I remember being set an exercise by the legendary lighting Engineer, Joe Lines. It was 1969 and I was living a bohemian student life in Manchester. We had to create a lighting scheme and provide all the relevant calculations. I set about the task with much enthusiasm, a little knowledge and even less talent. A week later, project completed, I handed in my weighty treatise and awaited assessment by Joe. A further week later my flat mate Paul collected his and my now 'marked' submissions and left mine on my desk in my squalid room. Written on the bottom in red ink was "7/10  Stop fooling yourself Roberts". This came as something of a shock because Joe Lines was an extremely patient and kind man! What could this possibly mean?
    What I only found out months afterwards, was that my friend Paul had added all the words after "7/10". I believe from that day onwards, I have suffered from what they now call 'imposters syndrome'.
    I attach photos as supportive evidence of how wrong you can be!
    George 'coughing' in an overcast Lowestoft
     
     
     


  2. Hawksmoor
    The weather continues to be very unfavorable for astronomy, so I continue to play in my 'shed of delights'. I have addressed some of the issues associated with using a 500 line diffraction grating as a simple filter cell.  I did not want to permanently adapt my QHY5-11 camera for spectroscopy and so designed a 3d printed block to allow it to be brought very close to the imaging chip at the optimum angle for a first order spectrum at 550nm. This appears to have minimised 'fish tailing' of the spectral image and aided obtaining focus upon the spectrum rather than the star. 
    In between visits from grandchildren I tried my new spectrometer out on my 66mm Altair Astro refractor.  Sitting in our living room on 07 July I could just make out a few stars above our neighbour’s house roof ( approx South). Being a bit idle, I pointed my spectrometer-refractor combo through the patio doors at a brightish star at a convenient height and obtained my first spectral image with the new spectrometer.  I didn't obtain any darks and flats or any such 'technical marlarkey' as I was really just giving it a go in between the clouds. I was quite surprised that I captured a reasonable image of the 'mystery star’.
    One of the not immediately appreciable downsides of using a 500 line diffraction grating is that, as the spectrum is more spread out than using  a 100 or 200 line grating, it produces a significantly dimmer image. Possibly this will be improved by using my 127mm refractor, by stacking more light frames and by taking darks and flats. 
    I prepped the spectral image using the freeware IRIS and then had a go at producing an initial calibrated profile using John Paraskeva’s excellent BASS software. I am amazed at the generosity and skills of people who devise and contribute to the development of freeware that open up access to scientific hobbies for old blokes like me!
    Having obtained a profile, I guessed the star in question was an A type star. I then used Stellarium to look for bright  A stars that were observable to the naked eye from our living room on 07-07-2021. The best candidate for my money is the A07 star Mu Serpentis. (This is probably wrong but ‘in for a penny in for a pound’!)
    Next up I intend to:
    Image Vega and obtain a camera response curve for the set up.
    Learn more about using BASS software.
    Complete a half constructed 3d printed 100 lines/mm set up for obtaining spectra from fainter stars.
    Come up with a rudimentary grating design to address extended objects of interest.
    Mess about with a fibre optic link between my telescope and a spectrometer.
     
     


  3. Hawksmoor

    DIY put together wide-field camera

    By Hawksmoor,


    Imaging Equipment
    I am a hoarder so never throw away stuff that might come in useful.  Being a tad environmental I try to re-purpose, re-engineer and re-use old kit that I purchased  back in the day when I was gainfully employed.  My old pre digital SLR lenses were first connected to my  DSLR with a shiny new adaptor but then fell into disuse when I realised my EOS lenses performed better. 
    Now retired, with more time and reduced cashflow, I decided that rather than modding my DSLR, if I could attach my old lenses to my QHY5L-ii mono and colour cameras, I had the makings of a wide-field camera that would be more sensitive to H-alpha.  BUT - old Hoya lenses have male 42mm 1mm thread connections and modern 42mm kit comes with 0.75mm threads.  Try as I might none of the UK suppliers or even  China appeared to have an appropriate adapter. In the end I found what I wanted - a 42mm(1mm) to T2 adapter on the RAF internet site based  in Belarus.  I already had the spacer and the C/CS connector I needed to complete the camera.  After placing my order the adapter arrived in the post from  'Sergei' in Moscow. A very nicely engineered bit of kit! How a meerkat could make such a brilliant thing with small furry paws escapes me!
    I do enjoy messing about in my shed with old bits and pieces!
    I briefly tested the camera the other night in less than good conditions and it appeared to work delivering an image roughly 6 degrees square. The weather is forecast fair for tonight so  I might try it out properly on the realm of galaxies in Virgo. 
    Ever onwards and upwards!
     


  4. Hawksmoor
    This has been a long time in gestation - first I built the 3d printer from a kit my son gave me for Christmas 2018, then I had to pluck up the courage to turn it on. The whirring and flashing lights are all a bit much for a man more accustomed to using Crayola 'chubby' crayons than digital vernier calipers. Then I had to get my head round  Sketch-Up, Netfabb, Repetier Host , Slicer3 and how to stop molten filament from blocking up a very small hole in a very hot bit of metal. 
    In my shed I have some 500lines/mm holographic film and a QHY5L-ii mono camera and three telescopes of varying focal length and aperture. Having read a lot of good stuff on SGL from people with much spectrum gathering and processing experience and having read Jeffrey L Hopkins book 'Using Commercial Amateur Astronomical Spectrographs' several times,  I realised that I had the basics for making a very low resolution 'slit-less' spectrometer.  Because the grating had so many lines /mm I had to get the grating pretty close to the imaging chip in order that the zero and first order spectrum would fit on the long axis.  Having crunched the numbers I worked out that if I could print a thin cell to hold the grating this could be sandwiched between camera and  its nosepiece without any un-reversible changes having to be made to the camera. So the game was on Watson!
    Once it was all put together and attached to my 66mm Altair Lightwave on a Star Adventurer Mount I pointed it at Castor as it was fairly high up, quite bright and a class A star albeit multiple. I was going to use VSpec  as it is free and I had managed to use it some years ago but for some reason unknown to me it would not load on my new Windows 10 laptop. It kept trying to link with a chess database on my machine so probably a dll file issue above my pay grade. So I decided to download the RSpec software 30 day trial. This software is not that easy for an old bloke like me to grasp but considerably easier than VSpec. After a lot of pressed buttons and repeated views of the tutorial videos I think I managed to acquire an ok calibrated and Instrument Response adjusted low res profile of Castor.  I attach an image of the result.
    Whilst I was processing the data I noticed that the zero order showed twin peaks which confused me for a while. Originally I thought this was just a processing artifact. Then it occurred to me that Castor is a multiple star system with two class A stars of roughly equal magnitude and although my little refractor could not split them visually perhaps spectrally it could?  Probably deluding myself!
    Anyway this little but drawn out project and 'Covid Lockdown' have kept me out of pubs!
    George next the Sea
     



  5. Hawksmoor

    Oh! those Summer Projects

    By Hawksmoor,

    Feeling quite 'chipper' today!
    Many of my little 'summer' projects have been completed and seem to work. First - my bathroom extract system has been installed without me once falling off the ladder or putting my foot through the bathroom ceiling, second - I'm now producing tasty pizza and bread from my DIY wood-fired bread oven without upsetting my neighbours and third I've constructed four  battery powered 'dew zappers' for camera lenses and scope objectives. 
    The following is proof: - 'Dew zapper' on the Canon EFS 18-55mm lens worked for just over 2 hours, allowing star trails and a time-lapse movie to be made, and thus exceeding the design parameters for the heater and battery.
    Many thanks to Alan Sheehan B.E on IceInSpace for his excellent article and Excel Spreadsheet relating to building 'dew zappers'. Thanks to Alan I could concentrate on the difficult bits including burning my fingers with a soldering iron and 'wrinkling up' the duct tape.
    http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-292-0-0-1-0.html



  6. Hawksmoor
    Capturing images of meteors is a bit like fishing. After the event, you are always haunted by the big one that got away!
    My widest camera lens is a Canon 18-55mm EFS zoom and even though this covers quite a bit of sky there is plenty left in which a bright meteor can suddenly appear.
    As I had two camera bodies, a Canon 600D and 400D DSLR, I decided to try and use them in tandem to improve my chances of capturing more meteors. Fabricating a ‘meteor rig’, reusing equipment and materials to hand, seemed to be an interesting project.
    I already had:
    Two Canon camera bodies One reasonably wide angle Canon camera lens An old Meade ETX tripod A  Star Adventurer Equatorial mount. A homemade connecting bar (for linking the Star Adventurer to the ETX tripod. A ball head connector for the Star Adventurer A  length of oak batten An inexpensive Chinese intervalometer Some large rubber bands A collection of stainless steel nuts bolts and washers What I needed to acquire:
    Another matching Canon 18-55mm EFS zoom lens. After surfing ‘the Bay’ I managed to find and purchase one in good condition for under £40 inc VAT and delivery. A mini ball head for mounting one of the camera bodies on the oak batten (the other camera was to be mounted directly) - £9 Another intervalometer - £13 A little bit of woodwork and trial and error allowed me to construct a meteor rig which allows each camera to point independently in RA and Alt but move together on an equatorial basis. I have had one trial run which managed to capture a bright sporadic meteor on both cameras. Interestingly, even though the camera settings were kept the same, the 600D and 400D images were slightly different (the 400D images were noisier).
    ‘Metcheck’ is predicting bad weather in Lowestoft for the night of Perseid maximum. Sorry, I guess it’s my entire fault!
     

  7. Hawksmoor
    Having completed the excellent and free Future Learn - Open University short course - 'Data to Insight' (University of Auckland) I finally got around to doing something with the copious amounts of data churned out by my SDR LVST (The Lowestoft Very Small Telescope) meteor catcher. I decided to first apply my 'forensic intellect -Dr Lecter'🤓 to the 2016 Perseid Shower (I had a set of data collected from the 4th to 16th of August). 
    Having done a bit of reading - an American paper from the 1990s - 'Statistical properties of meteors from a simple passive forward scatter system' by D D Meisel & J E Richardson  and the excellent - Detection & Analysis of Meteors by RADAR (Using the GRAVES space surveillance transmitter) by Dr David Morgan 2011, I decided to have a go at 'gaining some insight from the data', even though I'm more at home with a sketch book than a calculator.  As I'm fully aware that many SGL members are former scientists and engineers - please be gentle with me and some of the 'broad -brush' simplifications and approximations I have made.  I'm quite prepared to believe that I have made many school boy errors both in principle and detail!
    I have organised the data using the accepted categories for meteor reflections - Over dense O, Under dense U and Transition T. 
    I have filtered and manipulated the observations to create data sets:
    O+U (including T) Cleaned source set) O-T (O excluding T) Subset U+T (excluding O) Subset  O+T (excluding U) Subset Creating the subsets was all a bit hit and miss and the procedure developed on an iterative basis. (As my partner is often known to say about my more off centre ideas "It might be getting a bit Goldilocks and the Three Bears")
    The 'full monty' including my interpretation of the data is on my LVST site:
    https://sites.google.com/yahoo.co.uk/thelvst/2016-perseid-meteor-shower
    The following extract from the LVST relates to O+U data:
    Filtering the full set of reflection observations O+U by removing all data where maxpower x duration (energy) <250 to create a new subset O+T
    The graph of reflection observations O+T plotted against the (24 hour) day date indicates :
     
    Overall the period during which data was collected 18,887 reflections were recorded.  This is  57.7% of the total number of reflections observed and represents only those reflections having a maxpower x duration =or>250 cycles (approx 3 secs).
    With 95% confidence:
     The maximum number of observations - between 16.87 and 17.96 % - were recorded on the 6th August.
    Between 11.53 and 12.46 % were recorded on the 7th of August.
    Between 10.89 and 11.8 % were recorded on the 10th of August.*
    The minimum number of observations - between 3 and 3.55 % occurred on the 4th August.
    *note: because of the small over lap between lowest and highest values on the confidence bars for the 7th and 10th. we cannot be 95% confident with regard to relative values of observations between these two days.  

    The graph of  reflection observations O+T plotted against the hour of the day (UT) indicates with 95% confidence :
    One max peak, a smaller peak, a approximately even base line and one trough in observations: 
    Max peak (approximately 5.5% of all observations)  between 2:00 and 8:00 UT.
    A smaller peak between 14:00 and 17:00 UT.
    A base line (approximately 4% of all observations)  at 0:00 and between 9:00 - 13:00 UT.,
    A deep minimum between 18:00 and 22:00 UT
    The plot of days against radial velocity for the O+T subset of observations is interesting in that it shows outliers of observations, particularly on 7th and 14th of August, grouped around radial velocities lower than the mean radial velocity (+367 m per sec with SD = 131.8) for the O+T subset.

    For the Observations O+T the plot of Observations per day against Observations per hour coloured to show differences in radial velocity is interesting. To aid clarity and understanding the data has been 'binned' on a hexagonal basis. The size of the hexagon is proportional to the number of observations.
    The observations made between 14:00 and 1900 (UT) on the 7th of August indicate a large number of reflections with radial velocities well below the mean value for V. The timing of these observations in the afternoon is also at odds with other days where observation density clustering is clearly skewed to the morning. Do these factors reinforce the hypothesis that a stream other than the Perseids is being detected? Could this be an outlier from the Capricornids or the Alpha Capricornids streams which are active into August?
    The same observations coloured to show energy (maxpower x duration) indicate the reflections in the afternoon of the 7th of August have a greater proportion of lower energy reflections. The Capricornids are slow moving meteors and have lower velocities (lower energies?) as well as having velocity vectors different  from the Perseids.
    I hope to analyse more of the data I have stored on pen drives and hopefully make comparisons between different showers and the same showers year on year. Even now I'm retired, I still seem to run out of time! 🙄

     





  8. Hawksmoor

    Christmas Day Dip

    By Hawksmoor,

    Invited by two of our children and grandchildren to meet them, early on Christmas morning, on the beach at Southwold for a swim. Had serious misgivings about this: as I dont do getting up early,  I do not have a wet suit and recently have been under the weather.   Anyway as my partner does have wet suit and was keen, a few bah-humbugs thrown in my general direction got me out of my 'toastie slumber chariot' before 8:00 UT and by 10:00 we were at the water's edge. There had been a hard frost overnight   but by the time we entered the water, the air temperature was a balmy 2 deg C . I managed a brisk 2 minutes before I fully realised why in previous years I had restricted swimming in the North Sea to the months of June, July, August and September.  
    Enjoy your Boxing Day Stargazers
    George thankfully no longer in the North Sea and in Lowestoft
     

  9. Hawksmoor
    'Calculating the Cosmos' by Ian Stewart and 'The Universe Next Door' a New Scientist compilation are both extremely enjoyable reads and have kept me going in between the'dark clear nights' here on the east coast.  So having time on my hands this summer, I prepared a digital image and poem in 'homage' to two of my favourite pursuits: reading books on cosmology I barely understand and eating shellfish most people tend to avoid. 
     
    'Winkles in the fabric of Space-Time' - mixed media - George Roberts - June 2018
     
    "If there were winkles in the fabric of Space-Time
    At the Planck scale squid and plaice would rhyme
    If the Universe and Albert Einstein could spin on one sharp pin
    Might each sardine simultaneously be alive and dead in it's tin?
    Perhaps dark matter would even cease to matter?
    If cod, god and gravity were resolved in batter".
     
    George Roberts from the book 'A Brief History of Gastropods'
     

  10. Hawksmoor
    Toot and I had a great time in Norwich last night. Dr Michael Foale CBE gave a talk about his life as an astronaut to a packed audience at the University of East Anglia. What an accomplished, kind and measured man. A couple of hours in his company passed very quickly. He has great interpersonal skills and although we only spoke to him very briefly, both my partner and I felt we had 'met him' rather than just 'heard him' speak. 
    What an exciting, if not at times scary, life and career he has had?
    Highlights include:
    a spacewalk to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope's computer from a 386 to a 486 ( I had one of each but I only had to fetch them from Currys) stopping the MIR space station from spinning out of control after it had been hit by a supply vessel commanding the International Space Station There were many children in the audience who were very interested in space and science. Dr Foale encouraged them to do what they were good at, pursue their dreams and not to be deterred by setbacks.  He paid particular care to encourage girls to pursue careers in science and aerospace.
    He very kindly - let anyone who wanted to - have their photograph taken with him. A long queue of excited children formed down one side of the Lecture Hall.
    "Dr Foale, I could tell you that the photograph is for my grandchildren, but really its for me"  said a very excited and pleased old man.
    If you get a chance to hear him speak and/or go to events organised by ISSET or a 'Pint of Science'  - go for it!

  11. Hawksmoor

    Transformer

    By Hawksmoor,

    Christmas upright Armchair Astronomer 'transforms' into horizontal Settee Astronomer without any visible expenditure of energy as Moon obliges by rising almost directly in front of his sitting room window. I could get to like this 'indoor astronomy' as it offers a warmer winter alternative for the older stargazer.

  12. Hawksmoor
    Just got back from Iceland having enjoyed a few days sploshing about in the geothermal waters, looking at waterfalls and geysers and eating lots of cod. As you can imagine, we were very excited at the prospect of seeing the Aurora Borealis.  Unsurprisingly, nights went by under a dense blanket of cloud. Then, on the morning of the last full day of our holiday, the sun came out and so did we.  After a full 10 hours traipsing about a glacier and investigating basalt columns on a black beach we returned to our hotel in Reykjavik.  Night fell - clunk!  One by one all the light pollution came on all over the city - but what was that faint sepulchre glow advancing from the far North across the slate grey Arctic Ocean?  Hurrah at the twelfth hour we got to see the Northern Lights. An excellent display it was too - lasting for about three hours. With the naked eye we could clearly distinguish green , magenta and blue light and we managed to take some photographs. Our astronomical cup overflowed.
    I have attached a rough and ready annimation which gives some impression from the early moments of the display.
     

  13. Hawksmoor
    Well last night, my partner's Aurora alarm app went off whilst we were having dinner - so pudding had to wait!  We loaded the tripod and camera bag into the family truckster and headed off to Corton Beach under cloudy but clearing skies.  Sadly, the street lights dont go out until midnight so Corton Beach, relatively close to our house, provides a dark site with a northerly view back over the cliffs largely missing the 'orange glow' that is Great Yarmouth. Whilst we were on the Beach the clouds began to clear and both of us thought we could see a green glow over the cliffs and just below the tail of the Great Bear. Anyway I took a number of photographs the best of which was taken whilst the app was telling us that photography would show the aurora from most of England. I have attached the image - 20 sec exposure - ISO1600 - F3.5 - tripod mounted Canon 600D DSLR - 18-55mm at 18 lens  which has had the following image processing :
    Application of autocolour at about 20% Colour saturation enhancement using LAB color and adjustment of channels by increasing contrast. Colour blurring using a gaussian blur. Saturation of red and yellow colours reduced to reduce the orange red glow of some 'low pressure' sodium street lighting that I could not avoid when taking a photograph looking north. General lowering of saturation across all colours and some repetitive luminosity layers to finish I think it shows some auroral activity. Looks very much like the low level auroral display that I photographed in Tromso several years ago. But as my partner says when I reach for the 'imaging software' - "Cheating again" - So who knows for sure ?
    A bit of a bonus was the very dark sky view east out across the North Sea.  Quite beautiful. We watched the Pleiades rise out of the sea and the Milky Way was absolutely marvellous. The dark lanes of dust could be traced with your finger and the Andromeda Galaxy was an easy spot with the naked eye. I took a sequence of images more or less centred on the Double Cluster in Perseus - 6x20 secs RAW-ISO3200 f=18 and F3.5- stacked in DSS - FITSwork etc.  I do like widefield astro photography and very much enjoy reading articles and viewing widefield images created by Professor Ian Morison - I have some way to go!
    It was very nice to see a couple of meteors - one was quite bright - and to capture the less than bright one shooting by and just under Messier 31 - an exposition in 'near and far'.
     
     


  14. Hawksmoor
    I was so keen to use my new 'fixing plate' - piggy-backing my little 66 mm. Altair Astro ED refractor, that I defied the clouds, a rain shower and finally extremely bright moon light.  First of all and to test the seeing I tried capturing some video clips of Neptune using my 127mm.Meade Apo Refractor and a x3 Televue Barlow.  An absolute disaster ! - Neptune was quite low over my neighbour's roof and the tiny image was 'bobbling' about on thermally active localised air currents.  Further more and because the planet was so near the horizon, colour dispersion was a major issue. I eventually gave up and decided to use the little Altair scope to image the full moon which by about 1.00am was looking quite good and stable in a dark sky.  Using my QHY5-11 colour camera at prime focus provided an image size that was just too big for the chip - so a 2-pane composite image was the way forward.  I also used the 127mm. Meade  with the x3 Barlow to capture some video of Mare Crisium but the atmosphere wasn't stable enough to take this amount of magnification with any great success.
    The plate works quite well but the alignment with the main scope is a bit out - will give this a bit of thought and will probably make a few adjustments at some time in the future - I have a lot of projects on the go at the moment!




  15. Hawksmoor
    Bodging around with aluminium off-cuts in my shed

    I thought it would be useful if I could piggyback my cameras and smaller scopes on my 127mm. refractor mounted on a NEQ6 Pro. The weight would not exceed the maximum load and I already had an extension bar which would enable me to balance the different set ups.  I had some bits of aluminium in the shed and time on my hands.
    Now, I know the workmanship is bit ‘here and there’ but I do not possess a pillar drill or much patience. I do however; have lots of nuts and bolts from Poundland and gallons of Gorilla Glue.  The fixing-plate cost very little and kept me amused for a couple of days - so as of this moment, I’m pleased with it!  Whether it works imaging wise remains to be seen and looking at the clouds overhead it might be sometime before I get to find out.






  16. Hawksmoor
    You could have knocked me down with a feather, when at 1.00 am. yesterday my partner said "why dont we go down to the seafront and see if we can spot the Aurora".  So off we went in the family truckster with tripod and camera box in the back.  We were originally going to set up base camp at the UK's most easterly point but the lights from the Birdseye factory were a problem. We ended up on Corton Cliffs with a fine view North towards  Great Yarmouth and the offshore wind turbines. Well after an hour we had both convinced ourselves that there was a green auroral glow hugging the horizon. I took a number of 30 second images at ISO1600 with the aim of putting together a panorama using Microsoft ICE.  Well here it is believe it or not?
    The red glow is light pollution from Great Yarmouth - those 'Norfolk Boys' dont turn the lights off at midnight like us ECO warriors in Suffolk.
    We returned home for 3.00am and had some pea soup to warm up - nice.
     

  17. Hawksmoor
    The pier construction project for my 5 inch refractor is nearing completion. Today, I bolted the oak capping, the mild steel levelling plate and my NEQ6 Pro equatorial mount to the top of the reinforced concrete column.  All in all I think the project will have cost me about £120 for materials but I did have some of the stuff I needed already in my shed.  The weather, true to form, has suddenly turned grim - grey clouds horizon to horizon.  I guess this is my fault.
    Everything seems to have turned out alright so unless the earth crust folds under the imposed weight I should be imaging Jupiter very soon subject to jet stream and cloud cover.
    The fabrication-construction stages were as follows:
    Obtaining via the Internet the laser cut 6mm mild steel disc for making the levelling plate. Drilling it to take the  3 stainless steel threaded studs used to fix the levelling plate to the top of the concrete pier. Drilling it to enable my existing extension pillar/puck to be bolted to it. Cutting and welding reinforcing bar to create a reinforcement cage for the concrete pier. Choosing the best location and marking out for the pier. Drilling my existing concrete paving through into the concrete sub base ( i didn't want to dig the paving up for the pier foundation). Chem fixing shear studs and the bottom of the reinforcement cage into the concrete sub- base. Constructing the timber formwork for the pier. Casting the concrete in two pours. Removing the formwork after 14 days. Painting  the levelling plate using three coats of Hammerite. Making the timber pillar capping and eyepiece tray from some surplius oak kitchen worktop. Boltting and levelling the capping, levelling plate and NEQ6Pro to the top of the concrete pier. Now I can turn my shed endeavours towards Spectrometer Mk3.

     
  18. Hawksmoor

    Lowestoft Pier

    By Hawksmoor,

    Well I've made a start on constructing my permanent backyard telescope pier by drilling the 6mm. mild steel laser cut 200mm. dia. disc to take the three levelling threaded studs and the 12mm. bolt for fixing my pillar extension tube to the plate.  My investment in new drill bits and cutting oil turned out well, particularly as I have no pillar drill and had to accomplish the task using my trusty handheld Black and Decker. 
    I am trying to minimise the costs involved by using as many bits and pieces that have spent many a year languishing in my shed.  Using the extension tube, which I already possessed, saved me the cost of a 'puck' and after rooting about in my shed I found some reinforcement bar and most of the timber I required for formwork to cast the reinforced concrete pillar.
    By coincidence my friend Mr. Lidl had reduced the cost of a small angle-grinder to £9-99  and as I had given my larger disc-cutter to one of my sons, largely because I could no longer pick it up let alone wield it in any purposeful way, I parted with the cash and now have an effective machine for cutting the reinforcement.  I have borrowed an arc welder from another son so I can weld the reinforcent together- excellent!.
    As a fair weather astronomer and sometime builder I'm awaiting a warm dry spell before putting the formwork and reinforcement together and mixing and casting the concrete (two pours). Looking out the window I guess this might be a while!
    Last night about 1.00am the sky over Lowestoft was dark and transparent. Jupiter was big and briight due south and most of the usual culprits for this time of year were visible through my handheld 11x80 mm. Helios biinoculars. I still could not find the comet lurking somewhere between the Great Bear and Hercules although I could easily see fuzzies of the same magnitude. I think I'm losing it!
     

  19. Hawksmoor

    Spectrometer Mark 2

    By Hawksmoor,

    After completing my current oil painting blitz, I spent some time today completing 'Spectrometer Mark2' in the 'clean room' or the kitchen as my wife likes to call it.  The primary reason for the redesign is my desire to use either my QHY5v or QHY5-11 as the imaging camera, without dedicating either camera to capturing spectra.  So a modular approach seemed sensible and the ability to experiment with different diffraction gratings was also an objective.  Mark1 was virtually built for 'nowt',  Mark2 has required the expenditure of a few quid mainly on purchasing an extra mounting bracket for the QHY5 (I already had one in my bag of astro bits and bobs).  I made the base from hardwood samples  handed down from my late and great mate Barry Shulver.  The tilt and turn mechanism, for holding the diffraction transmission grating, was fashioned from a camera holder and tripod obtained from everyones favourite country 'Poundland'.
    I used an on-line transmission grating calculator to work out the diffraction angles for different gratings and basic trigonometry to calculate the distance between the gratings and the cameras chips to fit the first order spectrum on the chip.  Hopefully, if I've got it right , it should work ok - so watch this space for my continuing 'Chad Valley' exploits in 'Off World Spectra'!
     



  20. Hawksmoor

    Learning my Lines

    By Hawksmoor,

    Well eventually, I think I managed to get my 'thinking' head around some of the basics of using Visual Spec software for producing and calibrating a line spectrum of the bright star Vega. 
    About 8 weeks ago, I affixed my homemade spectrometer to the business end of my 127mm refractor and obtained some faint and blurry video of Alpha Lyrae and its first order spectrum.  Anyway time passes and after a lot of fiddling about and numerous software crashes, I managed to plot a wiggly line and identify three of the Balmer Series Hydrogen Absorption lines ( well I think I did or it could all be wishfull thinking). The thing is I've ended up with something and hopefully its a calibrated spectrum of Vega.  I leave you to be the judge?
    I tried using Wiens Law and my spectrum to calculate Vega's temperature and was at least half the published temperature of 9600K.  I concluded that Vega does not therefore radiate energy as a 'Blackbody'.
    Anyway this small scientific step has wetted my appetite for spectra and I have some virgin video of Deneb and Altair to play with which at my current rate of progress should keep me busy until Boxing Day.  I am also considering a new spectrometer design - using a camera with better controls and a a bigger chip. This could see me undertaking some 'serious shed action' after Christmas. More glue Santa if you please!
     

  21. Hawksmoor

    'One of those'

    By Hawksmoor,

    After many a night of stretching pillow cases over the end of my telescope, no offence intended, I have finally got around to making myself a light-box for taking flats.  I can only hope this will improve my images.
    I gleaned most of the materials from the back of my shed, added a few LEDS and a switch from my best mate Mr Maplin and attached a bungee and batteries from everyone's favourite country 'Poundland'.  It doesn't look pretty but I cant wait to try it. Come on weather make an old man's evening just a little more cheery. I've almost used up the Scandinavian Noir series I recorded from the Telly.  If the I don't get a clear night soon I will be forced to watch tennis or football.

  22. Hawksmoor
    When I was a ten year old kid I used my pocket money to buy job lots of old broken clocks from Maidstone Market.  I would take them home and spend hours in my Mum and Dad’s cellar taking them apart ostensibly to get them working again. They never did but hey I never let failure deter me.
    Nowadays, being happily retired (and no gloating intended), I have many an hour to while away in my shed.  Nothing that I can get away with, gives me greater pleasure than recycling old bits of metal, plastic, wood and abandoned technology - for astronomical functions. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t – so no change there then!
    My latest project, to construct a thermometer for taking the temperature of stars or as it might be described a ‘Chad Valley Spectrometer’, is well under way.  It remains to be tested but what with the transit of Mercury and the sudden outbreak of rain which followed, I await a clear night with mounting excitement. 
    The ‘Starthrotch Analyser’, catchy name ehh, has been constructed from a vandalised Logitech E3500 webcam, a section of chromed tubing, some aluminium plate left over from a DIY yard gully, 3 BRE hardwood samples from my late and great mate Barry Shulver, a piece of galvanised mesh, half a dozen screws, some pieces of black felt, Gorilla glue and lots of Evostik impact adhesive.  I did have to purchase from ‘Edulab Scientific Supplies’ for about £10 - 3 slide mounted 100 lines/mm transmission gratings.  All in all and if it works, quite a‘thrifty’ piece of kit!
    My daughter, Rachel, was quite impressed. She thought the general appearance of the ‘Starthrotch Analyser’ was very ‘1960s Star Trek’, my partner Toot believes it would not have looked out of place in ‘Blake’s 7-the cardboard years’. Praise indeed!
    I will let you know in a future post whether it works or not, although my best guess is it probably won’t! 
    I wonder if I could make an operational ‘photon torpedo’ from a second hand Halfords top box and an obsolete Tom Tom - SATNAV?  Anything is possible in a shed.

  23. Hawksmoor
    I like a bit of recycling and so, after I realised that I had not used my old ETX90 RA for at least two years, I decided to get it out of its fabric carry-case and give it 'the once over'. I have to say that little scope is a robust little beggar and optically as sound as the day my partner Toot purchased it for my fiftieth birthday. The fork mount is definitely passed its sell by date but the OTA is definitely too good to waste sitting on a shelf in a bedroom.
    So today I decided to remove the OTA from the forks so that I could use the ETX on my recently acquired Star Adventurer equatorial mount or otherwise piggy-back on my 127mm.refractor. Being a bit cautious, I consulted the relevant pages of Mike Weasner's site and after a bit of a rumage around to find the right sized imperial allen key, I threw caution to the wind and set about separating the scope from the forks.  Once the four hex screws were removed it only required a bit of brute force to slide the two bits apart. 'Houston we have separation' and the jobs a good un!
    The next part I really enjoyed, a quick trip to Maplins to buy a flight case to house said OTA. I really like pulling out the precut sections of foam etc. However, I have relunctantly come to the conclusion that I have run out of items of furniture in our sitting room behind which I can  hide the now seven flight cases from Toot. I have also covered most of my backyard with sheds and if I put anymore stuff in the loft, I will inadvertently convert my house into a bungalow.
    I'm really pleased that I shall be using the ETX again. It will be good for imaging brighter comets and white light solar work.  Hopefully, I will be able to use it to watch the transit of Mercury.
    On a more positive note, less cash or space intensive, a piece of transmission diffraction grating film arrived mail order from Israel this morning. So next week on rainy days I will be working on my Mark2 DIY filter or the 'VCS'  (aka a very cheap spectrometer).  I made the COAA version using an Epson printer to print lines on acetate sheet and this works quite well  (image in one of my albums) but number of lines per millimetre limited by the printers operating parameters.  I have been reading Jeffrey L Hopkins 'Using Commercial Amateur Astronomical Spectrographs' published by Springer.  It is an excellent practical read on spectroscopy particularly suitable for someone like me.  I sit firmly on a spectral line somewhere between 'reasonably untechnical' and 'complete numpty'.

  24. Hawksmoor
    Late on February 10th and in the early hours vof the 11th, I tried out my newly purchased QHY5-11 camera.  Whilst awaiting the appearance of Jupiter over the hedge, I had my first go at 'guiding' using ther QHY5-11 as a guide camera and my Canon DSLR as an imaging camera.  All went surprisingly smoothly. Orion was loitering in the south-east and although the light pollution was not good ,  I targetted  Alnitak and all the usuaL culprits.  I chose a guide star, locked on and started a series of 3 minute exposures.  One was ruined by a passing satellite but after excluding this one, I managed thirty minutes  worth of photons without mishap.  Oh how my cup floweth over!  Then disaster, the guide star broke up before my very eyes and everything went 'pixels- up' on my clockwork laptop.  Trying not to panic, I saught reassurance by telling myself that the camera driver was probably playing up.  So I followed the set course used by computer experts worldwide. I turned everything off. Then turned it all back on.  As the camera booted up, I scanned the computer screen for stars. Completely black!!!!!!!  At this point I imagined the next morning's conversation with my long suffering wife.  " You only purchased the camera yesterday and you broke it on the same day"!  "What are you like @*$££££"?
    Then it dawned on me, the earth had been spinning and both Barnard 33 and my selected guide star had disappeared below the ridge tiles on the kitchen extension to our house.  No wonder PHD Guiding had struggled!  What a turnip?   I have to say this act of genius was not a one off. The week before I had stayed up to four in the morning taking video clips of Jupiter using my old QHY5v planetary camera. The following day whilst eating my breakfast I realised that I had forgotten to use the infra-red filter.  So if anyone wants several gigabytes of blurry videos of Jupiter, apply immediately to avoid disaapointment. I must be getting old!
    Anyway, the image of Alnitak, the Flame and Horsehead nebulae turned out better than I thought and I did get some useable AVIs of Jupiter.  The seeing was a bit poor so the Jupiter images are not that sharp, but all in all  I'm quite pleased with the QHY5-11.  I believe QHY are bringing out a new camera this year to replace the QHY5-11 so I purchased it at a very good knock-down price from Modern Astronomy.


  25. Hawksmoor

    Puss in Bootes

    By Hawksmoor,

    The early hours of the 8th of January were not for the faint hearted. Although the ambient temperature was well above freezing the wind chill here on the UK east coast was significant. After a couple of hours outside I needed a hot cup of industrial strength Marmite to thaw out my inner self. On a positive note the sky was clear of cloud and significant moonlight. I thus set foot to first view Comet Catalina through my big bins and then photograph it.
     
    The comet was far too low in the north east for me to use my big refractor- so bins it was. I store my dustbins in a fenced enclosure on the north side of our house, sounds grand but isn't, and so balancing my bins on the bin enclosure fence I discovered that the comet had conveniently raised itself above Arcturus such that said balanced bins pointed straight at the comet. In the past I have not found comets to be so accommodating.
     
    I must say with the street lights off after midnight, my 80x11 bins did a good job of showing the comet albeit quite a small image. With averted vision I could clearly see the spread of light between the two tails. Nice!
     
    I then spent an hour and a bit with fixed tripod, Canon 600D DSLR and EOS 18-55mm lens, snapping away like a good-un! Twenty or so RAW images later, raw- well the wind was, I returned to the warmth of our house. Today I have done what my partner, Toot, describes as 'cheating' using a number of software programmes to collate and enhance my snaps. I have attached the resultant annotated image for your inspection!
     
    The reasons why I like comets a lot!
     
    They are truly exotic denizens of the deep.
    Their astronomical configuration, position and luminosity are constantly changing in real time.
    They are often hard to locate, they disappear and sometimes reappear.
    They are very old but have the appearance of youth.
    Their performance is unpredictable.
    They are sometimes spectacular and always exquisite.
    They travel alone.
    They are evaporated and reinvigorated by sunlight.
    They are driven and destroyed by gravity.
    They might have created all life on earth and may one day end it.
     

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